EA Sports launched the latest instalment of its Soccer game – FIFA 16 for the Xbox one, Playstation 4, Xbox 360, the Playstation 3 and PC.
I haven’t laid hands on one of these babies yet - but i’ll make a more comprehensive review when I get to play it. For now,I have decided to do an aggregated review.
With that note of excitement hanging in the air, allow me a moment of clarity. FIFA is a tough game to review. It's an aggregation of several years’ worth of features and modes, all of which are changed and updated to varying degrees with each iteration. Anyone who’s played FIFA, or PES, or any sports game will know, it’s impossible to really know how you feel about that game until you’ve played it for months; Loved it, hated it, loved it again, and then decided it’s, you know, alright for a game you’ve played for 300 hours.
With that in mind I intend to limit this review to a look at the most important and brand new additions to the FIFA 16
Addition of a new Draft mode within the extraordinarily successful FIFA Ultimate Team;and, well, everything.
We should probably start with ‘everything’, as there’s a lot to get through. What I mean by ‘everything’ is that the heart of the game, the way in which FIFA plays football, has for the first time in a few years made a jump big enough to feel like a distinct break rather than an iterative polish. Last year’s slants and foibles--pace, over-the-top through-balls, maddening defender behaviour--have been taken sternly in hand, to the extent that playing
FIFA 16 feels like learning a new game. It’s hard, and the first few games are a mixture of frustration and promise.
The stated objective was to remove player speed as the pivotal factor in deciding games, to make the midfield meaningful, and to enable different styles of play, rather than
FIFA 15’s dominating tactic of high balls out to the wing where fast man will get behind the defence. EA Sports' latest soccer sim wants players to compete on a level footing. And while, realistically, we’ll have to wait until the online population has stress-tested the new system for millions of hours and reported back before we’ll really know, this is how the changes currently feel.
Mercifully, thanks to the above tweaks – “confidence in defending” in particular – that’s no longer the case. Centre backs mark snugly, constantly buffeting and tugging at even the strongest forwards. Full-backs track properly and look to step in front of onrushing wingers before they can reach top speed, while defensive midfielders break on to under-hit opposition passes, always seeking to spring a deadly counterattack.
Pace and power are still as important as any other attribute, but timing – bursting past a full-back at the right instant, or shrugging off a central defender just as a crossed ball meets your striker’s forehead – is now critical in using them correctly. Nowhere is this better showcased than in the newly introduced women’s matches. Without the Olympian velocity of a Cristiano Ronaldo or Yaya Toure’s adamantine strength, finesse is imperative – that means recycling possession among midfielders and full-backs until a tantalising defensive gap offers a through-ball opportunity, or an out-of-position opponent provides a brief window in which to cross.
The big difference this year is the game's pace. FIFA 16 is slower. Even after installing the day one patch that EA released. Fans of the series might feel it's a step down from what they've been accustomed to. During our marathon sessions across game modes, we've come to the realisation that this change gives you a little bit of extra time to think in FIFA 16. It is crucial as it lets you consider different ways to approach your game.
This is a far cry from older entries in the series that had you passing the ball from one player to the next, almost ricocheting off them as if it were a game of pinball, with the sole objective of blistering through the pitch and knocking the ball through the back of the net.
With FIFA 16, you are rewarded for building up an attack carefully. Regular passes are slower and you can opt for a faster pass with the trade-off being that the receiver will find it tough to control the ball. Rather than trying to best your opponents with a sheer burst of pace, you'll have to outthink them, making crosses, passes, and tackles more important than just running past the opposition. You'll spend a lot of time fighting for possession in the midfield, making each move count.
All these adjustments to animation, dribbling, and shooting lead to what EA is calling Moments of Magic, which feels like a misguided attempt to define something that’sbeen part of FIFA for years. is still capable of lifting me out of my chair in surprise, delight, and raw, unrestrained joy. I wouldn’t say these moments are more frequent this time, but they’re still there, and heightened as ever by an intoxicating atmosphere. Besides the inclusion of women, if there’s one area FIFA has PES licked it’s here. It’s more than just glitz when you thunder in a strike from 25 yards off the underside of the bar and the crowd roars its approval. And when the supporters start bellowing their club’s anthem at the top of their lungs to celebrate a late, late equaliser, I defy any fan not to join in.
For your first 10, 20, 30 games with either sex, creating chances – let alone scoring goals – feels almost impossible. Results read like an essay written in binary. Then everything clicks, and you realise it’s exactly as virtual football should be; challenging your brain’s ability to unpick an organised opponent, rather than your index finger’s RT-holding endurance.
As a result, this version of Fifa lacks the usual immediacy, and some of those seeking the end-to-end goal bonanzas of previous years won’t have the patience to persevere. More fool them. After a few days with the game, its more deliberate build-up play becomes second nature, and it’s then that you’re really able to drink in Fifa 16’s other little simulation improvements.
The result of all of this is that FIFA 16 is full of scrappy back and forth, the ability to play patient possession football, and a greater range of passing than ever. The dominance of pace in last year's game is over, although sometimes it does seem as though it has been offed through foul means, with through-balls, for instance, feeling conspicuously limited, unwilling to put players in the clear either up the lines or over the top of defences. But for the most part the new style of play--slower, grittier, but still skilled--seems like it’s been achieved through nurturing rather than nerfing.
And so that is everything, in terms of its gameplay pillars, which no doubt is the area on which I place the most importance when judging FIFA. But FIFA’s success during the last few years has been as much to do with the collecting and trading compulsions of Ultimate Team as it’s been about actual (pretend) football. So the arrival of Draft mode, a significant addition to Ultimate Team, is also worth a good look.
DRAFT MODE
Draft mode sits aside from the main business of buying packs, building teams, and playing them against opposition online. It’s like a paid-entry one-off Ultimate Team tournament, in which players build a temporary team position by position, opening a pack for every slot and deciding which player inside best fits the side under construction. The finished team is then played against other Draft players, with bigger than usual coin rewards for a winning run (the maximum streak is four wins).
Draft takes the pleasure of building a team--piecing together strong chemistry, the thrill of opening packs--and gives it to you without the need to pull your main team apart. It costs 15,000 coins (or 300 microtransaction FIFA points) to enter, and of course Draft mode is, in the end, about making more money. But that’s OK if it’s something worth paying for, and Draft offers something more substantial than the chance to simply reveal a randomised selection of players. Building a new team is a complex puzzle that’s different with each Draft, and winning a few games delivers substantial rewards (my first four-game winning streak gave me a total return of around 60,000 coins, which is a fine start to the season).
FIFA needed a year like this. Without serious competition from Konami’s PES in the past few years (
until now), and with Ultimate Team keeping players playing and paying all year round, there’s been no pressing motivation to ring the changes. Annual titles will always evolve gradually, but recent progress has felt glacial. FIFA 16 can be stubborn and stifling, but it feels gloriously new, and having to learn fresh strategies and nuances in a game series like this is an almost-forgotten pleasure.
THE VERDICT
Like I stated at the beginning of the post, I haven't had the opportunity to play the game but from all the internet buzz,I look forward to "learning" to play soon.
what are your thoughts? let me know in the comments below...
